City approves V&M payment to Girard

November 23, 2012

YOUNGSTOWN - The Board of Control on Wednesday approved a payment of more than $52,000 to the city of Girard for the V&M Star project.

The payment is part of an agreement the two entities have over sharing income taxes generated from workers at the site when the two formed a Joint Economic Development District.

Since August 2010, the site has generated $2,390,199 in taxes and Girard has been paid $1,314,693 through October, according to figures compiled by Deputy Finance Director Kyle Miasek.

The terms of the agreement for the JEDD call for Youngstown to keep the first $1,024,000 of taxes collected at the site and then pay Girard half of the amount collected over that.

Finance Director Dave Bozanich said the amount decided on that the city should keep is based on a formula of labor costs at the site and is adjusted regularly.

The expansion project required land in both Girard and Youngstown for the mill, which in turn required the city to have some of the land in Girard annexed into Mahoning County.

Fact Box

Youngstown Board of Control OKs payment of more than $52,000 to Girard.

Money comes from terms of a JEDD created for the V&M Star expansion project.

More than $2.3 million has been collected since August 2010; Girard has received more than $1.3 million of that.

V&M had announced in February 2010 that it would construct its new mill next to its existing plant in the former Brier Hill Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. The completed structure will be 1 million square feet, or almost 23 acres, under one roof.

The new plant will be capable of producing up to 500,000 metric tons of seamless pipe in small dimensions and is expected to be operating at full capacity shortly.

The two cities reached their agreement at the 11th hour in 2009, when it had seemed that everything was ready for the land to be transferred from Girard to Youngstown until Girard officials balked at switching the city's borders and the differing tax rates each city has.